Broadcaster Charlene White looks back: ‘I first faced racist abuse at primary school. I realised I was different and tried not to stick out’

Born in London in 1980, Charlene White is a journalist and broadcaster. She cut her teeth as a reporter for ITV and the BBC – joining Radio 1’s Newsbeat and 1Xtra in 2002. In 2014, she became the first Black woman to present ITV News at Ten. White is a regular presenter on Loose Women, and appeared on I’m a Celebrity … Get Me Out of Here! in 2022. Her memoir, No Place Like Home, is published in September.

This is in my childhood garden in south London. I look very posed in this photograph; down to my hands and my very particular crouch. My uncle Errol fancied himself as a photographer, so he would use me and my cousin Marcus as his models. By the expression, it looks as if he’s taken one too many; that smile is very “Can we just hurry up now?” I couldn’t look too moody though – I’d get a massive telling-off.

My parents were good at throwing activities at me to see what would stick. I loved tap, ballet and the recorder – a lot of my passion for music was absorbed by osmosis at the Jamaican Christian church my grandad helped to create. My love of writing was nurtured from an early age, too – Dad would teach me to read using newspaper headlines, and we watched the news on TV every day. If I wrote something good at school, like a poem, they’d get me to recite it in front of the family.

The school I went to was really mixed in terms of ethnic and class diversity. When I moved to a new one aged seven, there was a very different demographic, and that’s where I first had to learn how to assimilate. It wasn’t full of people who looked like me or had a similar background, and it was the first time I was a victim of any sort of verbal or racist abuse. I realised I was different, and I tried not to stick out so I could have an easier time.

My parents never made me feel we were doing without, but I knew how hard life was. When the financial crash happened in the early 90s, my dad went from owning a business as a driving instructor to suddenly losing all his income and becoming a postman. I had a scholarship to a private school, and there were often trips that we couldn’t afford. One in particular was a visit to France – I was one of a couple of kids in my class who didn’t go. I told the teacher I didn’t fancy it, when really I just knew we didn’t have the money. If my parents found out, they’d work even harder to make it happen, and I didn’t want that.

Growing up in a big church family, I was never able to go off the rails – I was on a tight leash. All I wanted to do was hang outside McDonald’s in Lewisham High Street after school, chatting to boys, but if any church people saw me do that they would immediately tell my parents. Dating was out of the question. Not worth it. If I dared to go out with someone, we’d have to avoid Mum, Dad and a million aunties and uncles. They knew what time all my buses were, and if I didn’t get home when I said I would, they’d hit the roof. It took me a long time to understand that they were just being protective.

A brief moment of rebellion happened when I was 15, however. I went to an under-18 rave at Zen’s in Dartford where Ant and Dec were performing as PJ and Duncan. I told my parents I was watching the Christmas lights getting turned on in Oxford Street. My friend’s mum found out and told mine. When she came to pick me up from the station, she refused to talk to me in the car. I was grounded for three weeks.

They started letting the leash go in my later teens when Mum got sick with bowel cancer. From 16, I took on so much responsibility at home. I was doing school runs with my brother, then going to school myself – and even doing his parents’ evenings. My family felt as if I deserved some fun, so I was allowed to go clubbing.

Mum was already gone by the time I started at the BBC. There were four and a half years of her slowly dying. When I got to 22, I realised I needed time for myself because I’d spent so much of my youth helping to raise my siblings while she was in treatment and Dad was at work. I left my first job at ITV when I was 21 because I felt I wasn’t being stretched – or paid – enough. My dad was not happy that I was leaving a job already, but I had a strong sense it wasn’t right. That’s the oldest child in me – I like to make decisions by myself.

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After Mum died, I partied a lot and wanted to go wild. I don’t know how I held down a full-time job: me and my friends at 1Xtra could be out until 3am and would rock up to the office at 8am. Every day was different. I could get sent on a train or a plane to anywhere in the world if there was a breaking news story. Even if I had no sleep, I’d be good to do a 12-hour shift reading the news.

I was really lucky to work with some incredible people at 1Xtra as I was quite broken at the time. They helped put me back together, while also encouraging me to be a great journalist and find my voice. I was given the freedom and space to be me, something I couldn’t do at school, while also telling people’s stories. I made mistakes, too. Part of the job on 1Xtra was to read text shoutouts. In came a message, so I started reciting it word for word on air. The entire studio froze and looked at me. I honestly didn’t know what the problem was, I had never heard the word “twat” before. I assumed it was just a version of twit. When the track played after, G Money, one of the show’s presenters, said: “What’s the problem? You just swore on air!” Suffice to say, once the song finished, I had to apologise for “any offensive language that you may have heard earlier in the programme”.

There have been so many incredible firsts in my career – from being the first Black woman to host ITV News at Ten, or doing the first all-Black Loose Women panel. One particular highlight was when I was doing the ITV morning news at 5.30am and everybody in my dad’s sorting office would end up watching me before work. One day when he came home, he said: “Some of the guys were asking if you were my daughter, and I said: ‘Yes.’” He smiled and went on with the rest of his day. It was understated, but I knew that was the moment he felt: “We’ve done it.”

When I look at that little girl, I see the blueprint of the person my parents were building. My whole family wanted me to be immersed within the struggles and joys of their life as hard-working Jamaican immigrants. I’m not sure I could have popped out any other way: I had to make my mark on the world.

That fed-up face definitely shows the fire they stoked in me. This time around my face is just as fed up, but only because crouching on your knees for a lengthy period is quite difficult in your mid-40s.